It Drives Me Crazy
by Petal Dust
Summary: Sometimes it's those simple things, those tiny habits, that trigger the strongest emotions. A collection of Zack/Cloud drabbles and scenes.
1. Sharing

**Author's Note: **Well, here's my very first fanfiction! This series of drabbles takes place during a relatively peaceful time during Crisis Core, and switches perspectives between Cloud and Zack. It'll be in a more-or-less chronological order, with the characters' feelings getting stronger little by little as the series goes on. Thank you so much for taking some time to read it. =) Reviews are welcome!

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters are property of Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1: Sharing<strong>

**Cloud**

Sharing with Zack drove me crazy.

We shared everything. We shared an apartment, we shared clothes, we shared chores and shampoo and food and money. I guess he kind of took advantage of my generosity. At first, it wasn't a big deal. He'd say "My shirt's still in the dryer, can I borrow one of yours?" Sure, no problem. "Forgot to eat lunch today, gimme those chips." Wasn't gonna eat them anyway. "I'm broke, can I borrow some cash?" He always paid me back. Eventually. And it was nice having my best friend around all the time, to talk to and learn from and laugh with, to do the laundry and empty the dishwasher. Sometimes. He didn't pick his clothes up off the floor, but that was okay. I didn't either.

It all got annoying pretty fast. Soon he was snatching my sandwich from me while I was eating it; he'd take a huge bite and hand it back. He used a whole bottle of shampoo in a week or two. He probably wore my clothes more than I did. I caught him using my toothbrush, my towels. Drinking juice right out of the container. The word _hygiene_ clearly wasn't in his vocabulary.

Then I started getting addicted to sharing. To Zack.

It started when I was with the other infantrymen one morning, standing at attention in my row as some lecturer droned on about something no one was listening to. Then I realized that Zack had been wearing my uniform shirt. That Zack smell was all over it - a warm and familiar smell, like a mix of cinnamon and copper and my shampoo. I closed my eyes, breathed it in. It was like having him right here, surrounding me, wrapped around me. My stomach tightened. I was hyper-aware of the fabric against my skin, the same fabric that was against _his_ skin not too long ago.

I was just sharing a damn shirt. That's all I was doing, wearing his shirt. Why did it feel like something inside me was aching? I briefly lifted the shirt collar up to my nose, let his scent wash over me for just a second before I returned to my infantryman stance. I tried to ignore it. Tried to stop thinking about Zack the way I was starting to think about him. I tried.

But he was everywhere.

There wasn't a "my clothes" and "your clothes" anymore, just "clothes". What was mine was his and vice versa. I kept noticing traces of his scent in the fabric, found a strand of his jet-black hair on one of my shirts. I told myself I hated it. But that was a lie. I found myself sifting through the clothes on the floor for the ones that really belonged to him, clothes with his smell embedded in them, and I wore them when I could. Soon there were strands of light blond hair on _his_ shirts.

It got worse. He took naps in my bed every now and then, and sometimes I'd lie down in it after he left, felt the warmth of his body in the blankets and inhaled his scent in the pillows. The taste of his mouth was on my toothbrush. I started drinking straight out of the juice container to taste him. His scent was soaked into the towels, I tasted him when we shared food. It's a wonder I didn't get sick. None of it disgusted me anymore. When he wasn't actually with me, I looked for him in all the stuff we shared. I don't know why I tormented myself like that. I couldn't have him in the way I knew I was longing for.

Sharing with Zack just drove me crazy.


	2. Mouth

**Author's Note: **I'd just like to say thank you for reading, and reviews are always welcome! =)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters belong to Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2: Mouth<strong>

**Zack**

Cloud's mouth drove me crazy.

Not enough words came out of it. He was so gentle and quiet, too polite if you ask me. His mouth said so little. But it expressed so much.

His smile gave me the weirdest mixture of happiness and sadness. I had this freaky gut feeling that it might not last long, that maybe one day he wouldn't do it much anymore, so I tried to make him smile as often as I could. It wasn't too hard to make him smile. Sometimes he laughed. Man, I loved it when he did that. Usually it was this shy little chuckle, covered by his hand, and he'd turn away like he was trying to hide it. He had to be _trying_ to be cute, right? Did it seriously just come naturally to him? But when he full-out laughed, he didn't hide it. He threw his head back and laughed that unforgettable kind of laugh, that kind of pure and genuine sound that made anyone happy.

Then there were those tiny things that his mouth did. Things that probably no one noticed but me.

I'd already found myself staring at him sometimes when we first met on the Modeoheim mission, in the snow. Right off the bat, talking to him felt like the most natural thing in the world. Like we'd known each other for years. And I was already noticing those little things he did with his mouth. Like me, he was kinda childish in some ways. Every now and then he'd stick out his tongue to catch a snowflake, lick the tip of his finger to get it off. At times he'd let out a long exhale to watch his breath form mist in the air. He'd lick his chapped lips even though they'd get chapped again within seconds in that weather. I don't know why I noticed things like that. Or why the hell I was staring at his mouth in the first place.

And I kept doing it. When I caught him sleeping, all curled up in one of the two beds in our apartment, I noticed the way he breathed - as evenly and quietly as a little kid, lips slightly parted, his breath lightly blowing against strands of blond hair that fell into his face. I watched his mouth when he drank something. When he licked a stamp, I watched his tongue. Then I started wondering. Wondering what it would be like to feel his mouth and his tongue on mine.

And he did this thing where when he cut his food he'd lick the knife, just for a second, to get the scraps off. He had to be taunting me. He had to know how much attention he was bringing to his mouth. But once when I noticed him do it, he looked up, asked me if something was wrong, why I'd sighed. I just blinked at him, dumbstruck. Did I really sigh? What've I been _doing _every time I watched his mouth? He demanded to know if I was getting enough sleep. I wasn't, and it was because of him, because of his mouth and the way he licked the damn knife and the way I could taste him on the juice container and the way his scent was all over my clothes and my bed.

But I didn't say that. I just scratched my head, grinned, told him to forget about it. He looked like he might try to argue more. But he knew by now that he'd be wasting his breath, so he just shrugged and licked the knife _again_ before going back to cutting.

Cloud's mouth really drove me crazy.


	3. Mornings

**Author's Note**: I honestly, sincerely apologize for not updating in ages. Schoolwork started being really brutal, but that's not really an excuse. I'll do a double update now! I likely won't be able to write for a while because I'll be traveling, but I'll try to post again when I'm back. For the time being, I hope you enjoy my stories, and reviews are welcome!

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters are property of Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: Mornings<strong>

**Cloud**

Mornings with Zack drove me crazy.

He didn't need an alarm clock - he just woke up. And he always woke me up in the process. I'd hear him yawn, hear the rustle of the sheets and the squeak of the mattress. Most of the time I just groaned and went back to sleep. But sometimes I couldn't help it. I watched him. I'd open one eye just a crack and wrap my arms around my pillow, keeping most of my face hidden in it so he wouldn't notice. And then I quietly watched him do the most boring things that didn't seem boring at all to me.

The cramped bedroom is always dark in the early morning, with the blinds closed over the only little window, but I could still make him out. He sat on the edge of the bed for a minute and stretched his arms. I couldn't help but smile into the pillow when I saw his hair; it always looked even spikier than usual when he woke up. I guess mine looked the same. He stood up for a few squats and a few more stretches. The gray light escaping between the blinds fell across him in thin lines, over his bright blue-green eyes, his bare chest. And I got that tightening feeling in my stomach again. But I kept watching him. Once I started, I couldn't stop.

He stepped over to the window and opened the blinds, flooding the room in soft morning light. He braced his arms on the windowsill and just looked out for a moment with a calm smile on his face. It almost hurt to look at him. At those familiar eyes, at his easy smile and his messy hair and the shape of his shoulders and the athletic build of his body and why was I clenching my pillow so hard? I loosened my grip, carefully, slowly. Silently let out a shaky exhale. What was wrong with me? I forced myself to close my eyes and I just kept thinking Damn it, Cloud, if you don't stop watching him you're gonna start thinking about him in _that way_ again.

I heard the shuffle of his feet on the carpet, heard him pick up a shirt next to my bed. I reopened my eye a little. He was right there, close enough to touch. He slipped the plain gray shirt over his head. Such a simple movement. Just raising his arms over his head and pulling the shirt on and the quiet sound of cotton against skin, all in a couple seconds. And for some reason I stopped breathing, felt my heartbeat accelerate as his body stretched out in a way that would've given inspiration to a master sculptor.

Then he apparently remembered hygiene, because he left the room and disappeared into the bathroom. Probably to use my toothbrush. I waited a moment for the sink water to start running, then pushed myself up and sat on the edge of my bed, took a deep breath, raked my fingers through my hair, tilted my head back to stare at the ceiling. And I just kept asking myself What the hell is happening to you? Do you know how complicated and inconvenient this is?

But I couldn't help it. I couldn't help that my stupid stomach tightened into a knot when I so much as _thought_ about him. I couldn't help that sometimes he made my heart pound like it could crack a rib, sent my blood racing faster than when I was on the battlefield. I couldn't help the way I thought about him when the morning light fell on his skin or when he leaned on the windowsill. What I thought about during those two seconds of him pulling a shirt on.

Mornings with Zack just drove me crazy.


	4. Shower

**Author's Note**: As promised, here's another chapter! This one's got dialogue! =o It was written rather late at night due to a sudden attack of the elusive Inspiration, so I hope it's okay. Reviews are welcome!

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters are property of Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: Shower<strong>

**Zack**

It drove me crazy when Cloud took a shower.

Both of us usually ended up taking a shower late at night, thanks to missions where they _tell_ you it'll be over by eight or something but then you wind up coming home at ungodly hours of the morning covered in dirt and monster blood and ready to drop dead from exhaustion. So basically we took turns taking a shower, ate something, and crashed. A simple routine. Well, it should be simple, but lately it wasn't. Not for me, anyway.

I'd already got cleaned up and flopped down on the couch with a sandwich while Cloud took his turn in the shower. That was the only thing I could focus on - the shower water running and its continuous whistle that we'd never bothered to try to fix.

And I wondered again. About stupid things. I'd been doing that a lot lately. I wondered what Cloud felt like when the hot water hit his back, if he sighed, whether he was the type of person who just stood there for a while with his eyes closed or if he reached for the shampoo bottle right away. I wondered if he noticed that crack in the wall that I noticed every time I took a shower, if he watched the water drain out for a while when he was done, if he ever doodled on the steamed-up mirror with the tip of his finger. But why should I give a damn about silly stuff like that?

"Hey."

I opened my eyes. Was I really so out of it that I closed my eyes? And finished my sandwich? Cloud's face was right above me, upside-down from my perspective lying down on the couch, one corner of his mouth turned up in a small smile. His hands were placed on the armrest on either side of my head. A few droplets of water fell from his hair and onto my face, but I didn't bother brushing it off.

"What?"

I guess my voice came out more serious than I meant it to, because he looked a little taken aback. "Sorry to wake you up, but that crack in the bathroom wall's been bothering me for forever. We really need to do something about it sometime."

I smiled a little, but it faded when I noticed some scars on his chest and along his collarbone. When did that happen? Maybe I just couldn't see them until I was this close to him. They weren't that bad or anything. But it bothered me, that he was getting hurt. It bothered me a lot. I guess I always knew it was happening - I mean, people like us are bound to get hurt - but seeing the scars really got under my skin. I felt like Cloud shouldn't get hurt. Like I should've prevented it.

"When did that happen?"

The words came out without me thinking about it, so quiet that even I barely heard them. I reached up and lazily traced the thin scar across his collarbone. His skin was still hot from the shower, burning against the coolness of my fingertip. He drew in a sharp breath. His fingers dug into the armrest.

It took a moment for him to answer me. "I'm clumsy. And I forget to keep my guard up."

It was so sad, the way he was looking at me, the tone of his voice. How could someone look so pained and attractive at the same time? My finger lingered at the top of the scar, at the ridge between his collarbone and his shoulder. I could still catch the smell of blood under all the artificial sweetness of shampoo and conditioner and shower gel. For a moment we didn't say anything. The air felt heavy. Like it was pressing in on us so hard that we couldn't even talk. My breath caught in my throat as a little of the water dripping from his hair trickled down my neck.

Then he hurriedly turned away, and I listened to his bare feet on the carpet as he headed into the bedroom. The light turned off after a few seconds. I covered my eyes with my arm, took a deep breath. Wondered what the hell was going on.

It really drove me crazy when Cloud took a shower.


	5. Beach

**A/N:** Summery chapter! And gosh, it turned out long...more like a short one-shot than a drabble, really. xD I'm sorry that I can't guarantee regular updates because of the workload I have, but hope you're all enjoying this. Thank you so much for reading and for the feedback so far. I really appreciate it. :)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters are property of Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5: Beach<strong>

**Cloud**

Going to the beach with Zack drove me crazy.

It wasn't often that both of us got to go to places like Costa del Sol at the same time, so we really tried to make the most of it when we did. It's freeing to just get out of the city for a while, feel the summer sun and the saltwater and the cool wind, and nothing's better than being there with Zack. I don't think anyone loves summer and the beach as much as him.

Today we got there in the afternoon after doing missions around the area for the whole morning. A few people were there, mostly other SOLDIERs and infantrymen that were either done for the day like us or sneaking out of their duties. I didn't blame them. The beach seemed too perfect and natural to be real after being cooped up in Midgar, so much white sand and blue sky and crashing waves that it almost made me dizzy.

For a few moments Zack and I just stood at the top of the beach, feeling the sand seep between our toes and gazing out at everything in front of us. Zack was grinning. I knew I was staring at him again but I'd pretty much given up on trying to stop. We'd changed out of our dirty uniforms and into swimming trunks and plain t-shirts. The thin cotton fell over his torso like water, not doing much to hide the outlines of muscles. I tried to not pay attention to that and watched the way the breeze rustled his hair, how the sun touched his face, how the light made his eyes glisten and look even brighter than they usually did.

I was still just standing there when he took off running towards the shore, laughing and pulling off his shirt and shouting at me to hurry up. I shouted back at him to wait. He didn't listen. I scrambled to get my own shirt off and then both of us were racing to the water, laughing and trying to push each other out of the way to get there first, like a couple of kids. For now we could forget all our responsibilities, all our problems. We were just Cloud and Zack. The world was ours.

It never felt like it lasted long enough.

The daylight faded too fast. Time passed in a flurry of reckless races to see who could swim out the farthest and sandy wrestling matches and volleyball games of SOLDIER versus infantry that just got frustrating after a while (for the infantrymen, anyway; the SOLDIERs were loving it). When the sun started to set, washing the sky and the ocean in orange and pink and turning the clouds to fire, just about everyone had left.

But Zack and I lay side by side on the warm sand, our skin and hair sticky with saltwater and sweat and sand but we didn't care. Our arms were outstretched on the ground and one of his was lightly brushing against mine. Where our skin touched it was voltage, sparks of energy that amplified and coursed through my veins until my whole body tingled a little. I tried to ignore it by staring up at the sky, still blown away by how big it looked here and how small it made us seem, how it felt like it could just swallow us up if it wanted to. Zack had been telling me about a girl who felt that way about the sky.

He was weirdly quiet now. I turned my head to him and saw that his eyes were closed, a content smile on his face, his breathing smooth and even. I shook my head and smirked as I turned away. It was kind of amazing that he'd just fallen asleep like that. But suddenly his voice spoke up, cutting through the hushed sounds of waves lapping at the shore and a few seagulls calling high above us.

"Hey. Cloud?"

I looked at him, only to see that his eyes were still closed.

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad you're here."

Such simple words. And for some reason I froze up, my breath hitching in my throat. It was the way he said it. With some undertone of conviction and complete sincerity that hardly anyone had used with me before. He must've noticed the sudden tension in my body because he turned over, sliding his arm away from mine to prop himself up on his elbow and lean over me.

That just made me tense up more. My mouth opened slightly to ask him what he was doing but no sound came out. I tried to meet his blue-green gaze without showing emotion. It was hard when I could feel his hot breath on my face and his hair was almost touching my cheek and all of my senses were filled with him. He smelled like salt and sweat and sand and Zack, all smile and bright eyes and bare tan skin, summer in physical form. He was so close that his breath crept into my open mouth and the briny taste of it settled on my tongue. I felt heat rising to my face as he kept gazing down at me, and then he snickered, turning over to lie on his back with his arms outstretched the same way as before.

"What?" I questioned him, pushing myself up to see his face. He grinned up at the sky and closed his eyes again. Stifled another laugh.

"Your cheeks are all sunburned."

I didn't say anything. Just lay back down and let my arm rest against his, listening to the steady waves and looking up at the seagulls in the fire sky and feeling like he was silently telling me something in the way his charged skin brushed mine.

Going to the beach with Zack just drove me crazy.


	6. Bed

**A/N:** Surprise! This series is still going! xD I really wish I could update more often (I really enjoy writing these) but school is kinda my life now. But yesterday, Inspiration attacked and I had to just stop working to write this. It's way too long to be a drabble, I know (1,286 words, to be exact...), and it's pretty serious, but I hope you enjoy it. Thanks much for reading. =) Oh, and reviews are always nice, too. ;) (wow, subtle...)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters belong to Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6: Bed<strong>

**Zack**

It drove me crazy when Cloud was in my bed.

I was facing the wall and starting to fall asleep when I felt the mattress dip a little, heard the springs squeak and the sheets rustle as he slipped in. My eyes snapped open but I didn't turn to him. He didn't say anything, didn't give an explanation, and to be honest I don't think I would've heard it if he did 'cause he was way too close for me to even hear myself think. As he settled in under the covers I could feel the warmth of his body and the force of his just being there, inches away, right behind me. Him. In my bed. I felt like I was a cruddy radio or something and he was interference; the closer he was, the more fuzzy and broken-up my mind got.

He needed to give me a damn warning before he did stuff like this. I mean, would it've killed him to just say Hey Zack, mind if I join you for a bit, also remember I'm your best friend and, you know, a guy, so don't go thinking about me in weird ways again, okay?

Then the sheets stopped rustling and we were facing away from each other on opposite edges of the bed and the silence kicked in. Then I realized I didn't need an explanation because I could feel that something was bothering him.

Cloud has this way of saying things in his silences. Sometimes I think he tells me more in silence than in conversation. It's hard to put into words, but right then there was like this heavy feeling of confusion and sadness and something like regret hanging in the air, and I knew there was no way I was gonna get to sleep when he was lying there radiating all that bad energy so I turned to him. I stared at his back for a moment, just taking in the shape of his silhouette and the way his shoulders moved up and down a little with each breath.

"You okay?" I asked him real quietly, even though I knew he wasn't and he knew that I knew.

He didn't say anything for a second. But then he turned over to face me, blue eyes meeting mine and starting a new silence that was trying to say everything but just ended up making that mess of feelings in the air even more confusing.

"I don't know," he mumbled. I raised an eyebrow at him. He averted his eyes, bit his lip, and I'd never wanted to hold someone so badly in my whole life but I didn't. Blue eyes flashed back up to mine.

"You're gonna laugh at me," he whispered.

"I won't," I insisted right away. "I promise I won't."

He hesitated, sighed. My hand was resting on the mattress in the space between us and he focused his gaze on it, started tracing random lines on the back of it with the tip of his index finger as he talked to me.

"There's this guy in the militia. I don't know his name but he's always talking about people...you know. Not nicely. It never really bothered me before 'cause I never know who he's talking about. But..." His eyes flickered up to mine for half a second and went back to my hand. "But today he was talking about you."

I smiled. I was used to people talking about me behind my back since I was young and got promoted fast. I found it kind of funny that Cloud would take it more seriously than I do.

"I don't care about that," I told him honestly. He shook his head.

"I know you don't. But I really do. I didn't think it would hit me so hard, since you've mentioned that it happens, but, I dunno...the things he said..." His expression hardened and he tapped the back of my hand a few times. He was silent for a little while but I could feel that he had a lot more to talk about. I waited.

"I tried to stop, Zack," he finally said, with something desperate in his voice that made my insides twist. "I really did."

"Stop what? Him talking about me?" I asked, lost now.

"No." His eyes slowly moved up to my face and stayed there and I kind of forgot how breathing worked. "Me. I just...I was just so mad, Zack, I wasn't thinking at all, I just walked up to him and the next thing I knew I was drawing my fist back and -"

"Wait, wait," I stopped him. I wasn't sure if I was hearing this right. "You _punched_ him?"

He bit his lip and looked at my hand. Nodded.

"In the _face_?"

He nodded again.

"Spiky, that's not bad," I told him very seriously. "That's the coolest thing ever."

_"__No!__" _His eyes locked with mine. "No, Zack, it's _not_!"

I just stared at him, not knowing what to say. His hand had stopped tracing and clenched into a fist and his eyes were blue fire. The words just spilled out when he went on.

"I dunno what happened to me, I guess maybe I was taking a lot out on him, but I punched him really hard and there was this awful loud cracking sound that felt like it went through my whole body. Then all I did was stand there with blood on my knuckles staring at him lying on the floor and there was blood coming out of his mouth and his nose and getting all over the place and everyone was running over to see what was going on and the paramedics had to come. He had to go to the hospital. He broke his jaw, Zack. I broke his jaw. Really bad. He has to get it wired shut."

He wasn't looking at me anymore. Well, he was looking at me, but his eyes had this distant look like he wasn't seeing me. Before I could even think about it I put my hand on his cheek really carefully, stroked it with my thumb to get him to come back to me 'cause I knew nothing I said would work and I needed to show him that I was here. His blue eyes refocused on me but they were tearing up.

"No one deserves that, Zack," he whispered, breaking me. "No one deserves that."

So I held him. Because he needed me to. Because I really, really wanted to. I put my hand on his back between his shoulder blades and pulled him to me and he wrapped his arms around my neck and buried his face in my shoulder, and the smell of his hair flooded through all of my senses and I could feel his heartbeat against my chest. But he didn't cry. He drew in a shaky inhale, let it out slow against my bare shoulder and sent goosebumps up my spine, tightened his arms around my neck and tangled his feet with mine so we were as close as possible and our bodies fit together perfectly even though they shouldn't. He didn't say anything more but I could feel that he was thanking me with everything he had, and there was some other feeling hanging in the silence that both of us knew was there but I don't think we were ready to acknowledge it yet. But I still buried my face in his hair thinking that no one deserves wanting someone as badly as I wanted him and not being able to do anything about it.

It really drove me crazy when Cloud was in my bed.


	7. Piercing

**A/N:** I have no idea how I was able to write this so soon, but I did. So here it is. o.o I swear these are getting longer and longer...I'll probably just change the story description to include "scenes" or something as well as drabbles. Also, I know a lot of you are probably dying for a kiss scene, but it's not _quite_ there yet. Soon though, I think. ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and thank you to everyone who's reviewed or favorited or added to alerts or just read. Really. Thanks. :)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters are property of Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7: Piercing<strong>

**Cloud**

It drove me crazy when Zack tried to pierce my ear.

I knew he was up to something as soon as I saw him messing with some stuff on the kitchen counter that I couldn't see and asked if he could "borrow" me "for a minute". Nothing good could follow that. The more reasonable part of me was telling me to say no and get the hell out of there before I got myself into something stupid 'cause it was too late at night to get myself into something stupid. But the more reasonable part of me never wins when it comes to Zack. I ended up slowly making my way over to him and sitting in the chair that he pulled up from the kitchen table, but I really started regretting it when I saw the needle and the bottle of rubbing alcohol and the cotton swabs and the _lighter_ sitting on the counter.

"What are you gonna do to me?" I asked him, mentally getting ready to bolt if it was something like experimental surgery or trial-and-error tattooing.

"Pierce your ear," he stated, the words muffled a little by the black marker he was holding in his mouth. I stayed sitting in the chair and watched him as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink. At least he was being hygienic about it.

"They're already pierced," I pointed out. He took the marker out of his mouth and dried his hands with a paper towel.

"I'm doing a second one. You know, like a double piercing."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I just wanna see if it works."

"And what if it doesn't?"

He just grinned and rolled his eyes as he set the black marker down on the counter. I really didn't feel any better, but I figured this was just another Zack thing that I couldn't back out of. He pulled up another chair opposite me and sat down and starting pouring rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab. I watched him silently as he did it, kind of captivated by how sure he was about this whole process. I'd never seen him be so precise.

"I've done this before," he said, reading my mind. I looked at his face, his eyes fixed on the cotton swab in his lap, and my pulse picked up a little when I noticed how close we were. I studied his focused expression, the way his head tilted as he concentrated on getting just the right amount of alcohol on the swab.

"When?" I asked quietly. He set the bottle back on the counter.

"In Gongaga, when I was a kid." He stared at the cotton swab in his hands for a moment and then raised his eyes to mine, smiled.

"Wanna hear a story?"

I smiled back a yes. He scooted closer and gently gripped my chin to keep my head still as he started swabbing my earlobe, and I shivered both at the coldness of the rubbing alcohol and the warmth of his breath against my cheek. He spoke quietly even though we were alone. Or maybe because we were alone.

"I remember it was winter 'cause it was one of the coldest winters we'd ever had. You know how Gongaga's usually really warm? We've got palm trees and everything. That winter it was so cold that a lot of the plants died. Some of the trees even turned red and orange and gold like it was fall. I'd never seen that happen before."

I found my eyes closing as I listened to him, savoring the sound of his voice in the quietness of the room, the images he painted in my mind. The coldness of the cotton swab disappeared but his hand stayed gripping my chin as I heard the click of him uncapping the marker with his teeth. I could feel its felt tip make a single dot on my earlobe, right above the silver stud that was already there. I opened my eyes as he let go of my chin to cap the marker, and then he grasped it again to turn my head a little to the side.

"I was the only one out of all my friends who had a furnace in the basement," he went on, examining my ear to make sure the dot was in the right place. "So we used to hang out there to get away from the cold."

He let go of my chin again and I watched his hands as he grabbed the lighter and flipped it open and reached for the needle. He held it near the flame for a moment, I guess to sterilize it, and I marveled again at the preciseness of it all. He put the lighter back on the counter, poured rubbing alcohol on another cotton swab and cleaned the needle with that. My knee started bouncing up and down when I realized that he was about to do it but he noticed and just slid his foot forward so his leg was resting against mine and it stopped. He leaned forward, skimmed his hand over my knee before placing it on my cheek to keep my head from moving to the side when he pierced my ear. How could he touch such meaningless and innocent parts of me like my knee and my cheek and make it feel like he meant so much more and make me want so much more? I was shivering again.

"Calm down," he ordered softly. And just like that, I did. He kept talking to me as his other hand brought the needle up to my ear.

"We never really had anything to do. But then this one kid who had like five piercings in one ear said that he could show us how to do ours, and we figured well why not? So we took turns. We sat around with hot chocolates in the warm basement for hours just piercing each other's ears. I got lots of practice, anyway."

My eyes were closed again and he was already slipping the stud into my ear. I hadn't even known he'd pierced it.

His fingers weren't touching my ear anymore but his other hand was still on my cheek. I felt his fingers just barely slide along my jaw and I realized that he hadn't done or said anything for a little while. I opened my eyes and saw that he was studying me, his bright blue eyes roaming over my face like he was trying to take in all of my features all at once and just wasn't satisfied no matter how much he looked, and something inside me was aching for the millionth time because I couldn't even count how many times I'd caught myself looking at him like that. He saw that I'd opened my eyes and his hand left my cheek as he looked away. He grabbed a cotton swab and handed it to me so I could clean the blood off the new piercing.

"I cried like a baby," he said.

I looked at him in confusion as I swabbed my earlobe. "What?"

"When I got my ear pierced," he murmured, not looking at me. "I cried."

It hit me then, the significance of him telling me this small story. Zack had probably never told it to anyone before. He'd probably never told anyone about his childhood before. But he had chosen to share it with me. It was important to him and he wanted to share what was important to him with me and I suddenly felt horribly guilty. I should share a story with him, tell him about Nibelheim. But I couldn't. My childhood was so different from his and I was so scared of what he would think of me.

So I just told him "Thank you."

A slow smile spread across his face and he said "No problem" and I knew that he knew that I was thanking him for so much more than an ear piercing. It eventually wound up getting infected despite all that precision that went into it and I had get it treated and let it close up, but I think it was worth it.

It just drove me crazy when Zack tried to pierce my ear.


	8. City

**A/N:** Well, this only took _forever. _x( I wrote half of it a long time ago and then the rest sort of got done in increments whenever I had the time and the inspiration to work on it. It's a little lengthier compared to the others and I hope it's not too boring. I just love walking downtown at night, and I guess this sprang out of that love.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to write fanfiction for a while...lately I feel like I'm kinda being pulled in different directions by all different things and whenever I do get the inspiration to write, all of my ideas are for original fiction, and I don't even have time for that. D: I don't know how much sense that made, but basically I don't think I could give you very good writing if I'm forcing it.

Ugh, sorry for rambling and making excuses. Again. I hope you enjoy, and thank you so much to everyone who's read/reviewed/favorited/etc. :)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters are property of Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8: City<strong>

**Zack**

Walking in the city with Cloud drove me crazy.

It wasn't like it was something we never did; you couldn't live caged up in an apartment in a big city like Midgar and just never go out anywhere. Well I sure as hell couldn't, anyway, so Cloud didn't really have a choice. Some nights when we hadn't worked too much, we'd grab a bite to eat at one of the diners that were popular with SOLDIER members and the infantry - the kinds of places that have their names written in cheap flickering neon lights above the door and ketchup bottles at every table and huge dusty plexiglass windows plastered with everything from advertisements for drink brands to recruitment posters for the militia.

They were always pretty packed and loud but I didn't mind, and I think after a while Cloud didn't mind much, either. Sometimes we went with a few other people but usually it was only me and him. I never said it but I liked that a lot better. When it was just me and him, he went into one of his silences every now and then, those short silences that were so much more than just silence. He'd rest his chin on his hand and stare out of the window, and for those few seconds I'd watch the headlights of passing cars move across his face and try to pick up on all those feelings being channeled over the salt and pepper shakers.

It was just us this time, but I knew there was something different about him as soon as we left the apartment. Like there was something he was mulling over in his head again and again. I started leading the way to a diner, but then he stopped walking and when I turned around to look at him he was just staring at the ground, chewing his lip and kind of shuffling his feet against the gray concrete. Then he looked up at me and said he wasn't really hungry and could we just walk around, just for a little while, if that was okay? I was kinda confused since he'd never asked anything like that before but I said sure.

I followed a few steps behind him, which was new 'cause usually he was following me, so I figured he must be taking me somewhere. It was cold out; our breaths misted in the air and we kept our hands shoved in the pockets of our jackets. I tipped my head back to look up at the night sky and asked him if he thought it'd snow soon. He shrugged, said he didn't know. I knew it probably wouldn't - Midgar never got much snow. We were quiet for a while, him focused on wherever he was taking me and me focused on the way he passed under the glow of the street lamps, how they illuminated him in yellow light for moments at a time before he stepped into darkness again.

He led me to the entrance to a tiny coffee shop that didn't even have its name in lights - just painted letters that were so worn out I couldn't even read them. Bells chimed as he opened the door and we stepped in, wooden floorboards creaking under our feet. The first thing I thought about the place was that it was warm. The air was warm and that coffee smell was warm and the middle-aged woman at the counter had warm green eyes and a voice like warm honey when she greeted Cloud by name, and her smile was warm, too. It was like the whole place was happy it finally had visitors. Some old jazz song was playing but it was so quiet it just sort of faded into the background.

"The usual?" the woman asked, and she was already heading to the coffee machines. Cloud smiled and started looking at some of the stuff on the shelves along the walls.

"Yes, please."

"And how about you, Zack?"

I told her I'd have the same as him, even though I had no idea what it was. Then I realized I'd never told her my name. I tried to remember if I'd ever been here before but I was pretty sure I hadn't. I glanced at Cloud as he scanned a shelf lined with brown paper packages of coffee beans and tea leaves and cocoa mixes and I realized he must've talked about me, and for some reason that made me really, really happy. It wasn't until the woman said our coffees were ready that I noticed I was grinning like an idiot at a rack of ceramic mugs.

Cloud went up to the counter and took the two styrofoam cups with a soft thank you. We sat down by the window and he slid one of the cups to me across the scratched dark wood of the tabletop.

"Hope you like black coffee," he said with a sheepish smile. The words sounded more like an apology than a hope.

"Sure," I said. Which was a lie. But if he liked it then I'd like it too, just this once. We both took a sip at the same time and I eyed him over the rim, taking in the way the fingers of both his hands wrapped around the cup to soak up the heat and the way his eyes cast down so all I could see was slits of blue. Then they flickered up to me and I looked out the window as fast as I could, put the cup down and leaned forward on my elbows and scratched at the back of my neck in what I hoped was a casual way and hoped he hadn't noticed I was staring at him even though I knew he had. He always caught me.

But I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was smiling a little at me, so I guess it didn't matter.

"I come here a lot," he admitted after a brief silence, setting the cup down but keeping his hands wrapped around it, his eyes focusing on it. "To think about stuff."

"Yeah," I said. "Coffee shops are good for that." I imagined him slipping into this empty place with its warmth and its creaking floorboards and its quiet jazz and sitting alone with his hands around a steaming styrofoam cup of black coffee, staring out at the street, thinking. I wondered what he thought about. Work? Home? The future? I hoped I was in there somewhere. I shook my head a little like I could get the hope out but I couldn't.

"Sometimes," he went on even more softly, hesitating, picking at the cardboard sleeve around the cup. "To try to forget about stuff, too."

I grinned. "Bars are better for that."

He smiled back but it was sad.

"Maybe. Probably. But, I dunno. I don't wanna forget completely or wash it away. That wouldn't be fair to them. I just want...to push it to the side. Forget a little for a little while."

He stopped picking at the cardboard and went silent. I took a sip of liquid black death but I kept my eyes on him, wondering if he'd say who 'them' was. I wasn't gonna push him to tell me but I really wished he would. Then he reached behind his chair for the plastic cup lids that were stacked on a table next to the baskets of sugar packets and coffee creamers.

"Do you mind if we start heading back?" he asked, fixing a lid onto his cup and sliding another lid towards me.

"What? _Already_?" I really didn't wanna go back out in the cold. But he was already getting up so I sighed and put the lid on the cup and followed him out, waving to the woman at the counter before we left with a chime of bells and a creak of floorboards. The quiet jazz cut off as the door closed and the city's night sounds of car horns and distant voices and tires on asphalt and wind gusting past my ears took its place. There wasn't many people outside. Most people who went out this late hit the clubs.

Cloud walked a little ahead of me again, with his head ducked down and a heaviness in his step that made it easy to see that there was something eating at him, but I forced myself not to say anything or ask anything 'cause I knew he'd just mutter a _Nothing_ and hide it all under his silence again and all I'd get would be pieces of confused feelings.

We walked for a little while and got to a narrow street so quiet I could hear both of us breathing. He slowed his pace to a stop, slid his shoulder up against the brick wall of the building next to us and just stood there for a moment, staring at his feet on the gray concrete, leaning sideways against the wall with his hands in his pockets as our breaths fogged in the cold.

"I screwed up," he stated, his voice flat and tired.

That made zero sense to me so I asked "What do you mean?"

He didn't say anything. I walked around him to stand in front of him, leaning my shoulder against the wall the same way he did. I murmured his name once. He raised his head and then rested the side of it against the wall and just looked at me and I'd never seen someone look so damn emotionally tired. Now that I saw it, I felt like it had always been there and he just hid it all the time like he hid everything and now he was finally choosing to let me see it.

"I screwed up," he repeated weakly. "I messed everything up. I'm not supposed to be this. I'm not supposed to...to be some _dog._"

The hate in the last word made me stiffen up.

"What, you think what we do makes us _dogs_? Animals? You and me and -"

"No, Zack," he cut me off, shaking his head, shutting his eyes for a second and then opening them to gaze at some point near my shoulder. "Not you. You're not...you're everything I...I was supposed to be_ you_."

The statement was so weird I couldn't think of anything to say for a moment and in the end I just came up with another blank "What?"

"I told them," he went on after a pause and a breath, still not looking at me. "I told them I'd make it. Into SOLDIER, I mean. My mom, and her, and a lot of people. Everyone in Nibelheim knew and they thought I couldn't do shit and I thought I was gonna prove them wrong and actually be someone. I was so sure. I was so _stupid_."

He grit his teeth as he said _stupid_ and it made me wanna shake him or hit him or hold him or do _something_ that would make him stop saying stupid things, but instead I just stepped a little closer to him and said, "You're _not_ stupid."

He laughed but it was bitter and he still wouldn't look at me which was starting to get on my nerves. It was like he thought admitting how he felt about this stuff made him different. Made us different.

"Then how come I couldn't do it, Zack? How come I couldn't get in and got stuck joining the militia when I should've been you and I'm so _below_ -"

"Below? _Below_ me?" I shook my head and almost laughed too 'cause it was all just so, so ridiculous. "You're not below me. You're looking at it all wrong, I mean I'm not - I don't - damn it, Cloud, _look_ at me."

I grabbed his chin and made him look at me. Those blue eyes stared into mine and his jaw was set like he was determined to keep looking at everything all wrong and there was nothing I could do about it. But I had to try anyway.

"Never think that," I said, my voice hard. "Never think you're below anybody, okay? Especially me. I'm not perfect, Spiky, you should know that better than anyone. I'm not perfect and being in SOLDIER _definitely _doesn't mean you're perfect. Hell, you're probably more perfect than I'll ever be."

I wasn't thinking about what I was saying. I wasn't sure if it made any sense. I didn't know if it sounded weird or if I'd said the wrong thing but in the end it didn't matter 'cause it was all exactly what was going through my head and I wanted him to hear it. He just gazed at me, his expression unreadable, but I felt him tremble as the tip of my thumb just barely skimmed over his lips when they parted a little. I let my hand drop to my side and for a moment it was just us and the mist from our mouths.

He stepped forward. My feet were frozen on the gray concrete. I felt his fingers touch my wrist and then his warm breath next to my ear - the shuffle of our jackets brushing, the tickle of his hair against my cheek, the press of his body against mine, the warmth of it. My eyes closed like maybe I could savor the feeling better that way.

"You're wrong," he murmured, and I could feel his lips move against my ear. Now I was the one who was shaking and I wasn't even that cold anymore. His breath blew warm air over my ear and my neck. I sighed before I could stop myself.

"Zack, you're wrong," he repeated very quietly. "You'll always be perfect to me and there's nothing you can do to change that."

And then the press of his body was gone and he put his hands in his pockets and started walking past me. I opened my eyes to stare out at the dimly-lit street in front of me. He said something behind me but it sounded far away, something like "Our coffees are probably cold now", and I must've stood like that for a while because then he asked "Are you coming?"

I turned around to face him. He smiled softly at me, breathing out puffs of vapor. It was silent as flakes of white started to fall from the black sky, drifting down over the buildings around us and the city lights and him. A few settled on his pale blond hair, on his shoulders. I said "Yeah". So we started our walk back in the city and the snow, and I watched him pass under the glow of the street lamps.

Walking in the city with Cloud really drove me crazy.


	9. Time

**A/N:** Hey there. I know it's been a while, but here's another long one. x_x

Just to let you know, I've been reading _The Catcher in the Rye,_ so if my writing was in stream-of-consciousness mode before, I think it has now entered stream-of-consciousness to the EXTREME. So I'm sorry if Cloud's rambling in his thoughts and recollections of memories bother you. If it's really annoying you can let me know, and I'll do my best to stop doing that in the next update, whenever I get around to that.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this update, despite the fact that it involves yet another depressing conversation. It's amazing, the things about Final Fantasy that they don't mention in the games that you can find out about with a little research - like the SOLDIER screening process. Thank you to everyone for reading and supporting. All your reviews make me smile like a kid eating double chocolate ice cream in the summer. Speaking of reviews, I see there's a nice new review button. It's trying to tell you something. What's that, review button? It wants you to click it. _  
><em>

I'm sorry. I'm sick and I think I might be a little woozy on cold medicine. I'll be quiet now.

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters belong to Square Enix, not me.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9: Time<strong>

**Cloud**

Wasting time with Zack drove me crazy.

I guess that's what I was doing - wasting time. I wasn't supposed to be lying on my stomach on the beige carpet of our room reading the same page in some combat manual over and over again 'cause I was busy stealing glances at Zack as he sat on the floor, leaning back against the side of his bed. He chewed on his pen and narrowed his eyes at another report. There was a whole stack of Shinra paperwork sitting next to him that he had to go through in one day; he'd been putting it off for months until someone finally called him and told him that he wouldn't be seeing any action anytime soon if he didn't get it done _immediately_. I remember I laughed when he got that call. He begged like a little kid, and when he realized it wasn't getting him anywhere he looked so pouty that it was impossible _not_ to laugh at him.

I called in sick for the day. I wasn't sick. I told Zack that I just didn't have anything to do. Really I just wanted to be with him, but no one had to know that.

In the morning he'd found a cheap old radio under a pile of dirty laundry. I don't know why we had it. It was this tiny boxy thing with an antenna and everything. He'd set it on the floor and switched it on to a low volume, thinking it might keep us a little entertained, but I'm pretty sure it only picked up one station and it was a news station and there was so much static that sometimes you couldn't make out what they were saying. I didn't mind, though. All I needed was Zack sitting there to keep me so distracted that I couldn't even read a damn page.

All I read was the heading. I didn't even absorb it either - it had something to do with defensive maneuvers, I think. I just kept glancing up at him again and again until I was staring at him. Both of us were out of uniform and that was weird for me 'cause it wasn't often that I saw him wearing a t-shirt and jeans like a normal person. There was a loose strand in the hem of his jeans and it was right in front of me so I kept idly twisting and untwisting it around my finger as I pretended to read. When I wasn't pretending to read I found myself looking at his neck a lot, I guess because it was hidden when he was in uniform. I watched the way it stretched when he angled his head to the side, how his hair feathered at the nape, how the afternoon light cast a shadow on the hollow right above his collarbone.

After a few more papers he groaned and tipped his head back against the bed, shut his eyes. I smiled.

"Having fun?" I asked him. He opened his eyes to glare up at the ceiling.

"Tons," he stated dryly. "You know how much I love paperwork. That's the whole reason I wanted to join SOLDIER. So I could do paperwork."

"Right," I said, still smiling as I looked back down at the book so I wouldn't start staring at him again. I heard the rustle of papers as he picked up another sheet. Then I suddenly felt like his mood changed. The only sound was the faint murmur of the radio, and when I looked up at him he was just staring at the sheet with this distant look in his eyes.

"You okay?" I asked. He blinked and looked down at me, half-smiled in a failure of an attempt to tell me he was okay, and looked back at the paper.

"Yeah. It's just...statistics," he answered vaguely. He stared at the sheet a moment more. Then he sighed and ran a hand down his face.

"Four hundred and twenty-six people in Shinra's military forces got killed last year," he said. He was trying to sound casual but I could tell that it hit him as hard as it hit me. I mean, the number probably included both SOLDIER members and infantrymen, but I still didn't think it'd be that big. And it seemed almost wrong for it to be so specific - four hundred and twenty-six people killed, just like that. Hundreds of names and lives and hopes and dreams smothered by a three-digit number printed in black ink on an annual status report. One of those people could have been me. Maybe even Zack. It was just so _cold._

"What's really weird," he went on, "is that almost thirty of them were in the screening process for SOLDIER. They weren't even on the battlefield or anything. They got sick from mako exposure or committed suicide during the _screening process_."

He didn't say anything for a second. I sat up and silently watched him as he raked his fingers through his hair and gazed at the list of statistics.

Then he murmured, "Most of those guys are about as old as you, aren't they? Damn it...not even _sixteen_."

He lowered the paper and leaned his head back against the bed again. I looked at the floor and picked at the carpet. I remembered that screening process. I remembered that it was hard and I remembered feeling like I was gonna die after the mako tests, but I guess I was so focused on getting into SOLDIER that it never crossed my mind that I really could_ die_. I had no idea people were dying. A couple guys disappeared, but everyone thought they'd just given up and gone home.

Then I remembered something that made my skin crawl. There was this one kid who sort of reminded me of myself - he was quiet and didn't do that great in the training exercises and I don't think anyone really knew his name. But I remember one time, we had to train right after mako testing. When it was over and we were all leaving the locker room, I caught a glimpse of him lying curled up on the dirty floor, and his face was all pale and sweaty and his arms were wrapped around himself and his teeth kept clenching like he was in serious pain. I didn't go back to check on him. I knew that training after exposure to mako was hard on all of us and I figured he just needed a minute to pull himself together.

But he was gone the next day. Everybody thought he went home. Now I knew what really happened.

"Cloud?"

I looked up and Zack was looking at me in a kind of worried way.

"What?"

"I said you shouldn't be so hard on yourself," he said, smiling a little. I must've spaced out so bad that I missed it the first time he said it. I tilted my head at him, confused. He laughed.

"I was saying that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself for not getting into SOLDIER," he clarified. Then his smile faded slightly and he looked at the floor as he added, "'Cause at least you weren't one of the ones who didn't get out."

I thought about it for a second. He had a point. But then all I could think of was that boy lying on the dirty locker room floor and hugging his torso like it might explode. I remember thinking he was really young; he could've been one of those kids who lied about his age to get into the training program. Maybe he was only thirteen.

I sighed and lay back on the carpet, stretched my arms and stared up at a small crack in the plain white ceiling.

"It seems like there's never enough time," I murmured after a moment. I wasn't exactly sure what I meant by it; it just came out. Zack didn't say anything and I thought my voice got lost in the broken murmuring of the radio. But then I suddenly felt extremely aware that his eyes were on me. I turned my head to the side, the soft carpet tickling my cheek, and looked up at him. That tightening feeling in my gut came back full-force when I saw that he was staring down at me, his mouth parted a little as his eyes lingered on my stomach, my chest, my neck. He saw that I noticed him and looked away, shook his head.

"Time to do what?" he asked, his voice rough. He picked up another sheet of paper and focused on it. I turned my gaze back up to the ceiling and tried to think of what I'd been trying to say but my thoughts were all scrambled up like one of those stupid jigsaw puzzles with a thousand pieces and I didn't even have a picture of what it was all supposed to look like because the only picture in my head was the way Zack was just looking at me.

"I don't know," I mumbled, biting my lip. "To live, I guess." I think that was what I meant. I had been thinking about the guy on the locker room floor and how he was only a kid like me and how he deserved to have so much more time than he got. I felt Zack's eyes turn to me again.

"Hey, don't say stuff like that. Neither of us will be one of those people. I mean, when you think about it, there's a hell of a lot more than four hundred and twenty-six people in Shinra's military forces."

He paused, then said carefully, "But I'm starting to wonder. You know, if it's worth it - doing what we do. If it's _right_."

That surprised me, coming from Zack. He was always so sure about everything. And I felt like we weren't supposed to question Shinra like that. I gazed at the ceiling and considered his words before replying.

"I think it's right, in the end. People die sometimes. But we're not doing anything wrong."

Zack didn't say anything again and I knew his eyes were on me, but I didn't turn to look at him this time. The radio kept quietly droning on in bursts of static and fuzzy voices. Then I heard papers rustling and a soft shuffling against the carpet and then he was leaning over me, his hands resting on the floor on either side of me, looking down at me with eyes set in a serious expression. I drew in a breath and forgot how to begin the process of exhaling until he spoke.

"I've killed a lot of people," was all he said, his voice hushed and level. As though those words should mean something to me.

"I know," I answered. He narrowed his eyes at me like he didn't think I was getting it. But even though it was weird to think of Zack killing people, I knew that he'd probably killed hundreds of people to get where he was. That didn't make him any less Zack.

"Don't you think that's wrong?" he asked, more urgently, like he was begging me to say yes. His hands clenched into fists on the floor and I could feel the tenseness of his body above me. "I'm not a good person. Everyone says I am, and I'm not. Not when people are lying in graves because of me."

"It's just what you have to do," I said, as calmly as I could when he was staring down at me with those bright blue-green eyes and that Zack cinnamon-and-copper-and-my-shampoo smell was making me kind of dizzy and I was very conscious of the feel of his knee pressing against my leg. "The people you kill are bad. I know that you'd never do anything you knew was wrong. It's like you're programmed to do the right thing."

A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips and I could've sworn that for a split second he glanced at my mouth. There was something different about him. Something grim and selfish. Like he was about to do something that he fully knew wasn't a good idea.

"Maybe you're right," he muttered. "Maybe they are bad. But sometimes I think I am, too. I don't always do the right thing."

I could feel my heart beating in my throat. I opened my mouth a little to make sure I was breathing and his eyes stared at it without looking away.

"I don't care," I said, which seemed like a simple and childish and brainless thing to say. But then his head dipped down and his mouth slid up against mine.

I don't know what I expected to feel. Maybe I hoped that I would either feel nothing or that the tightening feeling in my gut that had been haunting me for so long would disappear forever if I could just kiss him once - just for one brief moment - and then I could move on with my life and not worry about all those bizarre feelings ever again. But neither of those things happened. Instead I just wanted so much more from him that the sigh that left me as he started to pull away came out as a weak moan and my fingers curled in the threads of the carpet. Apparently that was all he needed, because I heard him inhale as he tilted his head to connect our mouths again.

I hadn't kissed that many people in my lifetime. Only one, actually - and it was some random girl in pigtails who kissed me behind a bush of azaleas during a game of hide-and-seek when I was about ten.

This was completely different. I was different. When I was ten, I was just a very surprised little boy crouched behind that azalea bush wondering when this dumb girl was gonna take her lips off mine. Now I felt like a man who had been walking through a desert his whole life on the verge of dying from thirst and the only water in the world was in Zack's mouth. I wanted to kiss him again and again until I wasn't thirsty anymore and I didn't give a damn if I never stopped being thirsty. I wanted him to taste guilt and greed and longing on my tongue and make him feel how much I didn't want any of it to go away. I wanted him to feel the useless fight for satisfaction in the way our teeth scraped when my mouth opened against his.

I was distantly aware of the static-choked radio sitting on the floor in the same place that it had been in the morning about a million years ago, faded voices talking about something dull and political while Zack was running his hand slowly down my side over the thin cotton of my t-shirt and my fingers were slipping through his hair. Everything seemed far away and hazy except him. I smirked when I felt him shiver as my fingertips skimmed over the tiny feathery hairs at the nape of his neck. I felt his fingers like they were electrically charged, even through the cotton, and when his thumb brushed against the sliver of bare skin between the waistband of my jeans and the hem of my shirt I sucked in a sharp breath and tightened my grip on his hair so much that I was sure I was hurting him. But he just smiled. His mouth drifted to the edge of my jaw, the tip of his nose momentarily gliding over my skin, his breath warm and familiar.

I felt so, so happy.

Then my eyes opened just a little and through my blurry vision I saw the small crack in the plain white ceiling. I suddenly remembered that reality still existed. That other things existed that weren't Zack's mouth and breath and teeth and the heat of his body centimeters above mine and the feel of his hands on me. That we were doing something incredibly, unthinkably, dangerously stupid.

I think he realized it at the same time I did. I could feel his smile disappear and his mouth hesitantly lifting from my jaw. Then he rested his forehead on the carpet beside my head for a moment, his hair brushing my cheek, his chest skimming against mine as both of us took in breath after ragged breath. When he raised his head to look down at me, the blue-green of his eyes was glassy, like unpolished jade.

"I think - I don't - sorry," he murmured, his voice husky, like he'd been screaming. He didn't look sorry and I was pretty sure he wasn't 'cause I sure as hell wasn't.

"You're not sorry," I stated firmly. I still didn't feel like myself. I felt like he'd devoured my mind while our mouths were connected; I hadn't thought about anything. I hadn't thought about what was right or what was wrong or about the boy dying from mako poisoning in the locker room or about what could happen if anyone found out what we were doing. But then I started to feel clarity coming back to me and a cold feeling close to horror settling in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if we could be kicked out for feeling this way about each other, for doing this. I realized that I probably could. But I wondered if even Zack would have to leave SOLDIER, lose everything that he'd worked so hard for, that he'd killed for.

He smiled wryly down at me and said, "No. No, I'm not."

He moved off of me, his knee sliding briefly against my jeans. The air above me was so empty without him. I stayed still and closed my eyes, swallowed hard. Tried not to think about the taste of him or how the ridges of his teeth felt against my tongue or the way his body felt as it shivered under my hands. I failed.

I listened to the sound of papers rustling and when it stopped I heard the creak of the mattress. I turned my head to look at Zack and he was sitting on the floor leaning sideways against the bed, the paperwork in his lap, his back to me. He raked his fingers through his hair again. I wished more than anything that those fingers were mine.

He sighed. "We...I mean, we really shouldn't..."

"Yeah," I whispered. He was right. He always ended up doing what was right. "We'll forget about it. We won't talk about it. I know."

He paused for a second and then stood up, the stack of papers tucked under his arm.

"I'll be in the library or something. I don't know yet. I'll call you," he said as he left the room. I knew he wouldn't call me. I didn't know how we could talk to each other anymore, at least for a while. I lay there on the floor until I heard the click of the front door closing and the muted thud of his feet descending the concrete steps of the apartment building. Then I sat up, stared hard at the floor for a few moments, and kicked over the radio. It filled the air with static as I drew my knees up to my chest and buried my face in my arms.

Wasting time with Zack just drove me crazy.


End file.
